Onboarding

Redesigned Yulu's onboarding to support a growing user base and expanding services. Worked on making the flow easier to understand, quicker to complete, and better at showing users what Yulu is about. Thus helping more people get started smoothly and explore the app with less confusion.

What is it?

A redesign of Yulu’s onboarding experience in response to rapid growth in 2019. As more users joined and new services were added, the existing flow needed to better guide users, explain how Yulu works, and help them get started smoothly.

Roles

Product Design

Product Manager

Me, Raghavendra

Developers

Subhadeep, Mayur

The challenge

In 2019, Yulu was growing rapidly in the electric mobility space but faced a key challenge: improving the onboarding experience to keep up with this growth. The goal was to improve the exisiting experience and making it easier for users to understand how Yulu works, what services are offered, and how to get started quickly and confidently.

The approach

Building a more educational and conversational journey was the approach. Focus was on creating a more scalable and flexible onboarding that would facilitate for achieving the goal and can provide room for experimentation. This centred around some key principles:

1. Educating customers about Yulu's model.
2. Using design system components to create visual languages.
3. Creating illustrations that set the standard for the remaining experiences.
4. Allowing for anyone to sign-up and use the services.
5. Improve the existing experience and add the missing flows.

The first version of onboarding was developed and shipped by developers which had major issues and missing features. So it was imperative to bring
about a change and a bit of delight to the experience.

* First version of onboarding *

The solution

Improving the experience

The goal of onboarding was not only to educate users about how Yulu works but also to improve the existing experience. A detailed audit revealed several issues that were affecting usability and engagement. Key problems identified were:

1. Placement of tutorials after login resulted in users skipping them, reducing their effectiveness.
2. Usability issues like small tap areas for actions such as Resend OTP, poor spacing, and unclear error messages.
3. The referral program lacked clarity, and users frequently found it difficult to apply referral codes.
4. Additionally, the app did not support password resets for forgotten credentials, and sign-up was limited to Indian phone numbers, excluding international users.

The goal of onboarding was not only to educate users about how Yulu works but also to improve the existing experience. A detailed audit revealed several issues that were affecting usability and engagement. Key problems identified were:

1. Placement of tutorials after login resulted in users skipping them, reducing their effectiveness.
2. Usability issues like small tap areas for actions such as Resend OTP, poor spacing, and unclear error messages.
3. The referral program lacked clarity & users frequently found it difficult to apply the code.
4. Additionally, the app did not support password resets for forgotten credentials, and sign-up was limited to Indian phone numbers, excluding international users.

Educational, not conversational

In 2019, the focus was on building and gradually expanding a design system, without doing a full app revamp in one go. Each feature was redesigned one at a time, starting with the Profile section, followed by the Onboarding experience.

The Goals we wanted to achieve

Enhancements focussed on making our users understand the working
model of Yulu, i.e. "Pick up a bike from Yulu Zone ⇝ Unlock & Ride ⇝
Drop the bike at a Yulu Zone" and this was made very early stage of Yulu's journey , so we were still trying to understand our user base.

The process

This was my first major project while I was still learning the foundations of design. To understand the drop-offs, the PM and I began by directly speaking with users to identify where and why they were losing interest. I also reviewed feedback from the App Store and Play Store to gather additional insights

*Sketching the onboarding*

The illustration

The onboarding experience was designed to tell the story of how Yulu works, with illustrations and motion playing a central role. These visuals also laid the foundation for a consistent illustration style across the entire app.

*Character exploration*

Final Design

The impact

The new onboarding flow improved user clarity and positively impacted both business metrics and user satisfaction.

1. Friction points in signup and tutorial steps were reduced, making the overall funnel more efficient.
2. Modular onboarding screens made it easier to test and roll out services updates quickly.
3. Clearer communication of Yulu's value proposition increased over trust from the first interaction.
4. Foundation set for a consistent illustration and motion language across the app, improving brand perception.
5. Stronger narrative flow helped users better understand how Yulu works, leading to smoother first-time experience.

Conclusion

The Onboarding redesign couldn't have been possible without the diverse set of stakeholders - front-end engineers, backend engineers, QA engineers, product managers.

I owe a special thanks to everyone involved as they helped me a lot in my first ever project.

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Educational, not conversational

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